


Brace For Impact

by TheCopperSoulBox (ProbablyJozo)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Caboose and Donut are Freelancers, Caboose is Agent California, Caboose vaguely remembers being a Freelancer but not the MoI crash, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Crash Landing, Donut is Agent Hawaii, Donut remembers being a Freelancer, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't directly contradict canon I guess, Implied Head Injury, Mentioned AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church, Relationship Study, Sort Of, everyone besides Caboose and Donut have really minor roles, or were
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyJozo/pseuds/TheCopperSoulBox
Summary: Agent California was near the back of the Mother of Invention when the alarms went off.Agent Hawaii found him huddled on the floor.
Relationships: Michael J. Caboose & Franklin Delano Donut
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Brace For Impact

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where I got this idea from, but I wrote this all in one sitting, so there's that.
> 
> AU (that's canon compliant) where Caboose and Donut are Agent California and Agent Hawaii respectively, and both of them were on the Mother of Invention when it crashed. There's a massive time skip from season 2 to pre-season 11 at one point, which...yeah. I have no explanation for that.

Agent California was near the back of the Mother of Invention when the alarms went off. He’d been making his way from the locker room to his own room, trying to ignore the sounds of gunshots and fighting nearer the front of the ship, when the floor shook violently and the alarms started blaring. Panicking, because he was still nowhere near his own room, he stumbled into one of the walls and slid down to the floor—and that was when one of the doors in the hallway opened.

“What’s going on?!” a figure asked to the open air, and California’s mind ticked to put a name to their armour. Standard design, mainly white with pink (no, light-ish red, he’d definitely heard that voice call it light-ish red before) highlights, not too different from his own two-tone blue armour. While they’d never been close, California knew he’d talked to this agent before.

This was Agent Hawaii.

“California?” Hawaii said, noticing the man huddled on the floor.

“Hi, Hawaii,” California said. “I think the ship is in trouble.”

Another jolt made the ship lurch, causing Hawaii to stumble out of the doorway and almost fall over. California curled tighter into himself, whimpering as gravity tried to pull him away from his spot on the floor.

“I think…” Hawaii said shakily, steadying himself by holding the door frame, “I think the ship is crashing.” He took a second to go over what he said, then: “Oh gosh, the ship is crashing! California, get in here!”

Hawaii grabbed California’s arm, yanking him to his feet and hauling him into his room before either of them could fall any further down the hallway. The door slid closed behind them and he didn’t bother with the lock code, shoving California onto his cot and ordering him to hold on to the bed frame.

“What do we do, Hawaii?” California asked, one hand gripping the metal frame and the other crumpling the bedsheets as he watched Hawaii dart around the room, looking for something. “They never told us what to do if the Mother of Invention starts crashing.” A lot of Hawaii’s belongings were scattered haphazardly on the floor, and more joined the mess when the ship lurched again. Hawaii yelped, actually falling to the floor this time, before he spotted something and scrambled up to grab at it.

“I’m gonna tie us both to the bed so we don’t go flying when we make impact, okay?” Hawaii explained, holding up the length of rope he’d just found. “I know it’s not the best option, but we can’t exactly get off the ship. The hangar is too far away!”

There was also the fact that neither of them knew how to fly a Pelican, or any of the ships in the hangar for that matter, so they’d probably end up crashing anyway.

“What if the bed goes flying?”

“It won’t,” Hawaii reassured him, tying one end of the rope to the bed frame and making sure it wasn’t about to come loose. “Trust me, I tried moving it to redesign my room—it’s bolted to the floor. No amount of action could get this thing to move.”

“...Why do you have rope?” California asked as Hawaii looped the rope around him. It really wasn’t the time for these kinds of questions, but he was curious.

“You never know when you’ll need a good, strong rope, California,” Hawaii humoured him, checking that the rope around California’s waist wasn’t too tight before sitting next to him and tying the rest of the rope around his own waist. California had to be squashed between Hawaii and the bed frame for it to work, but they were secure, Hawaii made sure of that. All they could do now was wait.

The ship lurched again.

“I’m scared,” California whimpered, shoulders hunched and head tilted down. For a moment, Hawaii wished they could take their helmets off so he could look the other agent in the eye to try and comfort him, but they needed to keep them on in case something fell from above them. Lack of intimacy was better than a head injury, after all.

“We’re gonna be okay, Cali,” he promised, desperately wishing he could believe himself, and he gently took the hand still gripping the bedsheets and held it determinedly. “Can I call you that? Cali?”

“Yeah,” California muttered. “Most people call me Cal, though, sounds more like an actual name.” There was a pause, both of them breathing as they felt the ship falling ever faster, before: “My real name is Michael.”

“Oh.” California definitely thought they were going to die, he wouldn’t have said that otherwise. “Well, my real name is Franklin.”

“Franklin’s a nice name.”

“So is Michael, it suits you.”

The ship jolted again, harsher than all the other times, and both of them shouted out as gravity tried to pull them apart, but the rope held tight. The ship was falling faster than ever—impact was close.

“I’m scared,” Michael whimpered again, and Franklin gripped his hand harder.

“Just— Just close your eyes and brace for impact, buddy,” Franklin said, doing the same himself. “We’re...we’re gonna be okay.”

“Okay.”

Michael squeezed his eyes shut, felt his body get flung out of its seat as the ship hit the ground, and was aware of nothing afterwards.

* * *

The two of them were assigned to a canyon once they’d fully recovered from the crash (which, for Michael especially, took quite a while), something about the Freelancer stationed there being compromised. But they had to go in acting as sim troopers instead of Freelancers, and not even Command knew why—when Franklin asked, they said something about the AI requesting them by using their real names instead of their codenames. It made no sense, especially when their brief was to ‘protect something’ and nobody actually told him what that something was, but he wasn’t in any position to start questioning orders more than he already had.

It actually seemed kind of fun, being a sim trooper—it would definitely be less stressful than most other Freelancer missions. It was just a shame that he and Michael had been assigned to different teams.

So Franklin became Donut, Michael became Caboose, and they started a new life on opposite sides of an empty box canyon. Donut met Caboose in what he thought was the store and actually got to talk to him for the first time since the crash—they hadn’t been together during assignment, after all—only to find out that Caboose didn’t recognise him in his standard issue red armour. Donut played along, taking the flag because he couldn’t go back empty handed, but as he left he couldn’t help feeling conflicted.

He had known Michael had gotten off worse in that crash than he did. The question was, to what extent?

* * *

When they asked him what he wanted his new armour colour to be, Donut chose light-ish red (not pink!) because it matched the highlights of his old armour. Part of him hoped that Caboose would recognise him when he saw him wearing light-ish red.

He didn’t.

But still, in the brief period of time where he was being held prisoner by the Blues, he made sure to tell Caboose that they would always be friends. He liked to believe he was telling the truth.

* * *

Caboose was near the back of the Hand of Merope when the alarms went off. He’d been making his way from the bathroom to the Blues’ shared room, keeping an eye out for any of his friends, when the lights flashed red and the alarms started blaring. He didn’t panic, although he did press himself up against the wall as if not being the middle of the hall would help at all—and that was when one of the doors in the hallway opened.

“What’s going on?!” Carolina shouted, Church flickering into existence by her shoulder, and Caboose wondered why this whole situation seemed so familiar. “Caboose?”

“Hi, Carolina. Hi, Church,” Caboose said. “I think the ship is in trouble.”

It didn’t take long for Carolina and Washington to round everyone up, stuffing them all into the Blues’ room and making sure everyone was accounted for. When the ex-Freelancers started trying to secure everyone to different surfaces, scavenging the room for anything and everything they could use, Caboose asked if they had any rope.

“Why would we have rope?” Tucker asked as he looped a bedsheet around himself.

“You never know when you’ll need a good, strong rope, Tucker,” Caboose said matter-of-factly. He’d heard someone say that once, although he didn’t remember where.

Tucker shot him a look, but Washington hummed, helping Caboose tie his own bedsheet. “Well, Caboose isn’t wrong. Some rope would be really helpful right now.”

For some reason, Caboose got the feeling that something was missing. Which was weird, because he’d watched Washington and Carolina count through everyone ten times over, so he knew they were all there, but still.

Well, Donut wasn’t with them, they’d dropped him off at Valhalla a little while ago. Maybe that was it.

Caboose decided not to keep thinking about it, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

“Brace for impact!” Wash yelled, having shakily secured himself as the ship’s tremors started becoming too much to handle.

Caboose closed his eyes. Someone had told him to do that, once. He couldn’t quite remember who.


End file.
